Cate Blanchett talks about her work in theatre and film
We talk to the award-winning actress about her work in theatre and film, and how she balances the two
A warm sea breeze blows through the Hotel Splendido in Portofino, where actress Cate Blanchett is whizzing through select interviews with the media before she hops on a plane back to Australia. The Academy Award winner has just wrapped up a twoday photo shoot with renowned photographer Peter Lindbergh for Swiss watchmaker IWC Schaffhausen, with appearances at the Cannes International Film Festival in between.
She’s looking none the worse for wear, which is surprising as she had zipped to Cannes the evening before for the Vanity Fair annual dinner, and flew back to Portofino in the early hours of the morning for a 7am make-up call. In a masculine, pristine white suit, Blanchett manages to exude femininity and elegance, and a touch of regalness.
It’s no wonder her famous colleagues on the shoot – Christoph Waltz, Ewan McGregor, Emily Blunt and Chinese star Zhou Xun – were reportedly more than a little nervous in her presence. When asked about the awe that seems to surround her on the set, Blanchett says with a laugh: “I work very hard to cultivate it.”
The actress is joking, of course. But it is easy to understand why even two-time Oscar winner Waltz might be in awe of the Australian star. Blanchett has had an amazingly varied body of work on stage and on screen.
From the overzealous Nazi officer in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull to playing Bob Dylan in I’m Not There and, later, Katharine Hepburn in The Aviator – for which she won her first Academy Award, for best supporting actress – Blanchett’s roles have often been as surprising as they were inspiring.
Her role as a neurotic, drug-addled fallen socialite in Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine has been lauded as her best to date. It garnered Blanchett her first best actress Oscar and almost every other significant acting award, including those from the Golden Globes, BAFTA and the Screen Actors Guild. It’s been a giddy year for the Sydney resident.
“I’m incredibly happy, and it’s an amazing honour, but it hasn’t changed my relationship to my work. It’s been very exciting actually, especially the past eight, nine months, because I had been working primarily in the theatre and hadn’t made a film for a long time,” Blanchett says.
She took on Blue Jasmine in between Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya and Jean Genet’s The Maids at the Sydney Theatre Company, where she was joint artistic director with her husband, writer-director Andrew Upton, until earlier this year. The couple had moved home to Australia in 2008 to have more quality time with family and their three sons, aged eight, nine and 12. After immersing herself in theatre work, which offered more direct communication with the audience, working for the first time with Allen – not known to be particularly communicative on set – left Blanchett doubting her own performance.
“I got to the end of the shoot that night, and said to [co-star] Sally Hawkins while we were working, ‘Oh God, that’s the end of my career, I’ve killed it, really screwed it up’. And then I’m bewildered but happy that it was received so well,” she says.